While driving on a highway, freeway, or other roads, traffic in front of a vehicle may suddenly or unpredictably slow down or come to an abrupt stop. The traffic event can involve the abrupt braking of one car or multiple cars in front of a vehicle, and the car or cars which are braking may be relatively close or farther ahead of the operator's own vehicle. To allow the operator of a vehicle to have greater situational awareness and respond faster to the changes in traffic condition, a system would be advantageous that is able to detect an event happening ahead of the vehicle, decode or analyze the event to determine if an actual braking or other emergency is taking place, and alert or alarm the motorist of the detected event in real-time or near real-time.
It would be a further advantage for the detection system and techniques to offer resistance to spurious or noisy signals which could falsely indicate traffic event activity.